Some months back, Wintery Knight generously (though with the ulterior motive of converting me from BioLogos to I.D.) sent me “God and Evolution” edited by Jay Richards. I determined to finish it by the end of the year and did so today. I present to you my Facebook play-by-play…with some new content in the “after action review”.
December 17:
1. Nothing New Under the Sun by John G. West
2. Having a Real Debate by John G. West“How could God ‘direct’ an ‘undirected’ process?” p. 40. The answer is a combination of how he performs miracles within the ordinary (miracle) and is sovereign over our free choices. He occasionally directly interacts with that which he always sustains in existence/operation, all without ever violating free will or natural law.Is “free will” an example of God delegating the task (of creation) to an undirected third party? If no, why is theistic evolution such an example? If yes, how does such delegation defy His sovereignty?Interesting that Collins (Christian) thinks things appear “random and undirected” while Dawkins (atheist) thinks things appear “designed for a purpose”.
Regarding the fall and whether we started out good…instincts are neither good nor bad and of course there was a first sin…for mankind in general, and for individuals. And every sin poisons the well as much as the first and we all need redemption.
Before the first sin we are without imperfection and therefore good. Even with all of our instincts. However we are not the sort of willful good that God is, which is more than just being “without imperfection”.
I am flabbergasted that rather than present theistic evolution in its strongest form and addressing it, West spins a version and poisons the well of discourse by equating it to Gnosticism. Is this desperate attempt repeated by very many? I certainly hope not.
Regarding my 3rd reply: I will have to review Collins’ comments bcuz I know he sees design in the universe’s beginning and fine-tuning.
Ug. On the moral sense… Just bcuz we evolve a sense doesn’t imply “that which is sensed” evolves.
Done w West’s contrib. lots of fallacious propaganda. 3 references to science upon which to follow up. Douglas Axe, Ralph Seelke, Stephen Meyer.
3. Smelling Blood in the Water by Casey LuskinAlthough Luskin has not repeated the charge of Gnosticism, he is using the same arguments and sources as West. Genetic fallacies and straw men abound.Yes there are no NOMA and I think Collins would agree. I think this may be the second time he was misrepresented. P.86Done w Luskin’s contrib…zero science upon which to follow up.
4. Death and the Fall by William A. Dembski
Well…Dembski gives a good counter-argument to blaming genetic defects (etc.) on evolution–God is still sovereign. Still, the actual solution to the problem of evil/suffering works fine and does not refute evolution. P.98
He gives no solution to the problem. Done with Dembski’s contrib.
Oh yeah, and no science.
5. Random Acts of Design by Jonathan Witt
Finally a contribution charitable to Collins and discussing the science! Ty Witt.
Hm. I wonder what Collins would say about his design arguments defying methodological naturalism? P112.
Good point countering Collins’ “clumsy God” objection to ID p.114.
To add to my first reply–free will, though not random, is still free–this is comparable to Darwinian randomness. God sustains random outcomes like he sustains our free choices.
Five chapters down. Time for a break.
6. Darwin of the Gaps by Jonathan Wells
Back at it. Strong intro for Wells but no cosmologist who believes in the cyclical model thinks there is no first cycle. There is also published work showing any model requires a beginning.
Need to double check if Collins ignored naturalistic theories of morality.
Plenty of science to follow up on.
Ironically, junk dna and silent mutations are conclusions of arguments from ignorance (gaps in knowledge). Done with Wells, on to Richards :)
December 28:7. Making a Virtue of Necessity by Jay W. RichardsRichards is critiquing Van Till’s “Robust Formational Economy Principle”. It makes sense to me that in order to say one has discovered the RFE, it cannot simply be assumed, it’s alternative must be granted as at least possible, and it would not rule out the possibility of the alternative’s intervention. I am curious about the arguments which suggest an RFE is impossible. I also find VanTill’s “divine propriety” unconvincing.
At present my position is that an RFE is possible and does not require, but does not rule out, divine intervention. As concerns divine propriety, God is both immanent and transcendent–interacting but not locked in. His creation was eternally complete from beginning to end, including our free contributions to it and the results of ‘chance’.
8. The Difference it Doesn’t Make by Stephen C. Meyer
I agree with Meyer that it doesn’t make sense to write off I.D. Theory as a “God of the gaps” theory while ascribing design to fine-tuning, etc.
Apparently there are those who think certain physical or chemical laws make life inevitable–both supernaturalists and naturalists. Meyer shows how it is only possible for a law to transmit–not generate–information. Information requires wiggle room to come into being. And “there are no self-organizing forces of attraction that can account for the sequence of specificity of DNA and RNA bases” (160). Will have to explore that.
9. Can a Thomist Be a Darwinist? by Logan Paul Gage
Skipping Catholic chapter. Skimming Thomist chapter (already caught the
essence implication years ago).Hm. Gage thinks Darwinism rules out essence. However, being made in God’s essence is not a physical thing, for God is spirit. Any being that, when matured enough, understands and can follow the Golden Rule is in God’s essence. Something said about Alasdair MacIntyre’s “After Virtue” regarding oughts coming from ises…seems to defy the fallacy. But it is because the fallacy ‘is’ a fallacy that the final cause cannot be rooted to the formal cause. “A thing’s virtue is its final cause in Aristotle’s theory of the four causes. A material cause is what a thing is made of. An efficient cause is the creative force acting upon the material. A formal cause (remnant of Plato’s theory of forms) is the shape or idea of the affected material. A final cause is the purpose of the affected material. In the theory of evolution, which Aristotle did not anticipate, the first material cause would have been the singularity, and it is hard to say what would have been its efficient, formal, and final cause, from Aristotle’s perspective. Starting from now, the human body and all its systems is the material cause. The efficient cause is the environment which shapes (like sandpaper to wood) the body and what it is used for. The formal cause is what the body is shaped into; how it changes to better suit its environment. The final cause is how the newly shaped body is actually used in its environment; the reason it was shaped. So the formal cause becomes the material cause, and the final cause becomes part of the efficient cause. As the universe was complete before it started, the final cause is Golden Rule love. However, there is a problem with rooting the final cause to the formal cause—the is-ought fallacy” (
SSP).I guess Behe is one of those who thinks God could have stacked the deck. Whereas Meyer showed this is impossible, Gage accepts it as a possible concession to non-interventionist Thomists.
11. Straining Gnats, Swallowing Camels by Jay W. Richards
12. Separating the Chaff from the Wheat by Jay W. Richards
I guess Richards is saying Meyer represents specified complexity and Behe irreducible.
The section in chapter twelve, Richards’ “Nature and Art: Thomas or Aristotle” is good.
December 31:13. Understanding Intelligent Design by Jay W. Richards
“Evolutionary theory is largely historical and abductive, and most contemporary design arguments focus likewise on the historical sciences in cosmology, origin of life research, and biological evolution.” Jay Richards, “God and Evolution” p. 268. If ID is philosophy, so is Darwinism. If Darwinism is science, so is ID.
Skipping the part written for Jews and considering this book “read”. Looking forward to Groothuis’ chapter on it. Next I would read Meyer’s “Signature in the Cell”. Summer perhaps.
After action review:
A couple final questions: Richards says on page 256 (same page where he mentions my 58th birthday, haha…that date, anyway):
“Of course, while Darwin proposed variation and natural selection as a ‘mindless’ substitute for design, it doesn’t follow that these processes could not be features of the world God has created. To some degree, they obviously are. We have several good though modest examples of natural selection preserving survival-enhancing variations.”
I had a discussion with Dr. Craig in a note I posted on Facebook, but I am deleting Facebook Sunday and the discussion was never resolved, so I am moving it to here. Hopefully he can reply here or in one of his weekly Q&A on his Reasonable Faith site.
Ichthus77 
August 6, 2011 at 3:58pm
Maryann Spikes:
Thankyou so much for referring me to that question. I looked it up here: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=8215 If you feel you are ‘really’ deriving an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’ (at first you say you do, and then you say you don’t) how can you consistently call others on it, like in your debate with Sam Harris? But, I don’t think you really are committing that fallacy (although, I think you did in QoW 222, when you said “are good because” instead of “exist, as”)–since we both agree (myself above, yourself in QoW #165) that there is a distinction between “justification” and “ontological foundation”. I agree with you when you say in QoW 165 that it is wrong to say “because God is a certain way we ought to behave in certain ways.” You are right, and it is wrong, because it commits the is-ought fallacy. But then you go on to say “our moral obligations and prohibitions arise as a result of God’s commands to us.” If God’s commands are not in accordance with his nature, then your statement amounts to voluntarism–to God making things up arbitrarily. So, our moral obligations and prohibitions, if God is not just making things up, are in accordance with his nature–but are not “justified by” the mere fact of his nature, for that would commit the is-ought fallacy, no?
This arises because you do not in your mind connect “these qualities” with “moral obligations and prohibitions”. In #165 and elsewhere (On Gaurd, Reasonable Faith), you do not equate moral goodness with the purpose of the universe, and you do not equate our hunger for meaning with our sense of obligation…these things are actually equivalent. On the cross, when Christ switched perspectives with us to show us God loves us as himself (imputing his own righteousness on whomever accepts it), Christ was demonstrating both ‘ultimate goodness’ and ‘utlimate meaning’ (that which satisfies our hunger for true meaning)–the Golden Rule (self=Other), which corresponds to (describes) his nature, though is not justified by it (is-ought fallacy). See above for the justification part. I am hoping this is received well, this is kind of freaking me out. I’m so honored that you have read and responded to my note. Blessings. :)